


How Sasuke Got a Spy Network

by LadyHallen



Series: DOS Forum Snippets [3]
Category: Dreaming of Sunshine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluffy, Gen, PTSD, Snippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28728939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHallen/pseuds/LadyHallen
Summary: Kindness hurt, like pulling out pus from a wound, but it made him feel better.This leaves a lasting impression on people around him.
Relationships: Sasuke Uchiha & Many and Varied OC's
Series: DOS Forum Snippets [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2102949
Comments: 6
Kudos: 220





	How Sasuke Got a Spy Network

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this Snippet for the Dreaming of Sunshine Forums a few years ago, and I found this snippet again!

Sasuke didn’t mean to.

Being kind hurt, like pulling out senbon from a wound, except it lasted longer. It lasted longer, but the next day, he’d feel less cold, lesser like glass and more like him again, Sasuke.

Being mean made him feel better, but only for a moment. After the outburst, he’d feel cold and hollow, emptier than anything. There was nothing to fill him in and if he tried to be kind after an outburst, it would hurt worse.

It was an accident, being nice that day. He didn’t think about it. There was a girl, crying on the swing and listening to her…felt awful. It made him remember _that night_. It gave him flashbacks and sent chills down his spine.

( _Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could delude himself to thinking that the children were only sleeping, not sliced in half._ )

He gave her the flower crown someone left on the floor and a handkerchief. When she blinked watery eyes at him, he felt stiff, like newly made clay. He couldn’t do anything but run away.

The next day, she was there, bringing back the handkerchief and a candy. He flinched when she touched him and she moved slowly. He knows, somewhere at the back of his mind, that flinching at the touch of people wasn’t normal. So he just goes still. Still and quiet as she gives him her gifts and thanks him.

It doesn’t stop there.

Unintentional things, small things, but slowly and surely, Sasuke amassed a Girl Club.

He doesn’t ever forget them, of course, not with the small gifts they give him in return. When he is sitting alone in a café, eating outside because eating at home felt like swallowing knives, his favorite dish would find its way to his table despite not ordering it. When he would look up, one of them would be there with a smile, looking at him.

( _He feels real, when they look at him. Not faded and a prized Uchiha, but a person._ )

He reciprocates those gifts. He doesn’t – cannot smile yet, but he allows himself to embrace some of them, even if one wrong move feels like it can shatter him.

Sometimes, he wonders if they know.

And then, there are the talkative ones. When he sits alone in the park, they sit a meter away and start talking to each other. Sensible gossip that eventually makes him realize he’s forming a network. A spy network.

( _It’s easier, to think of it like a mission. The Shinobi Rules form a guideline and it such a solid wall to lean on that he can finally **breathe**._)

They inform him of the merchants, and when it would be _wrong_ to buy chicken meat because the owner of the stall had cheated on the purchase and the meat might be bad. They tell him of neighbor’s children that had potential to be ninja because they were stealthy, sneaky little shits.

And once you move past all of that, once they all get older, the girls tell him of the shinobi. They tell him that their quirks, their friends and their usual haunts.

So once a silvery masked head popped in and announced “My First Impression? I don’t like you,” Sasuke wanted to curse.

He got the freaking Copy-Ninja. It would take a miracle to pass. A lot of miracles.

Turns out though, that the miracle came in the form of Shikako Nara.

The girls didn’t really have much to say about her, and that was remarkable, given whose daughter she was. People had things to say about Shikamaru – not necessarily nice things, but they seemed to not notice Shikako. It was a remarkable thing if she did it on purpose.

It was definitely something she did on purpose, he thought, as they passed the Copy-Ninja’s impossible test before the alarm even rang.


End file.
